July 10/2015

 One Year since Operation Protective Edge

Sixty Seven IDF soldiers and six civilians were killed last summer during Operation Protective Edge in Gaza. They gave their lives for the State of Israel. The 67 soldiers who fell and left behind 131 bereaved parents, 11 widows, 36 orphans, 187 bereaved brothers and sisters and a total of over 350 grieving family members, whose wounded soles will never be healed and for whom the immense void created in their lives will never be filled.

This week Israel remembered and honored it’s fallen in a state ceremony held on Mount Herzel, commemorating one year to the operation protective Edge, which began a year ago on July 7th. It has been a year of pain and longing. In the words of Israel’s Prime Minister as he addressed the bereaved families “'I'm feeling great pain in my heart, but also great pride'. I know well that there is no end to your grief, but alongside this you have the knowledge that your sons' bravery saved many lives in Israel."

“This was a moral, legitimate and appropriate campaign of a sovereign country seeking to protect its civilian population. In the weeks prior to the campaign, Israeli towns and cities were subject to daily barrages of rockets from Gaza, assault tunnels were dug under kindergartens and public gathering venues, with the sole purpose of reeking death and destruction” said President Rivlin. 

The campaign in Gaza took Fifty days, during which most of Israel’s population was under attack. A year has passed, but for many the campaign has not ended. For those people, the end of the military operation was just the starting point of a no less challenging, hard, personal never ending battle. It is a battle they will have to fight for the rest of their lives; A daunting battle with no cease fires, and in which no medals are presented.

Unlike our enemies who sanctify death and are consumed with hatred, we sanctify life. Those killed in operation Protective Edge are a link in the chain of heroism of all those brave men and women who fought and gave their lives so that all of us can live proudly in our country, in Israel.  

Shabbat Shalom,

  

Yaron Sideman
Consul General Of Israel,
Mid-Atlantic Region